Successful people have setbacks. Everyone does. But successful people bounce back. They have persistence. They are resilient.
~ www.jaywren.com

Do you have the qualities of persistence and resilience? If not, how can you develop them?

With persistence, great sports teams come from behind to win the game. Great inventors with persistence work through research and development failures until they have a successful product.

And with resilience, these people can fail and try again until they succeed.

These people are empowered for success.

Persistence and Resilience

Persistence (that is, staying at a task until you achieve success) and resilience (that is, returning to a task to find new ways to achieve success) go hand in hand.

So, what do successful people do to overcome failure?

Push Ahead

In some cases, you may have just encountered a bit of resistance. If you have made progress in learning a new skill, but you hit a step that you can’t complete or perform. Practice is a method of pushing ahead when you run into challenges.

Even with a perfect product and plan, business campaigns can encounter resistance. However, as the participants continue with the campaign, they may find that they become more effective at using the plan. Additionally, they may find new prospects who need the product or service. By simply pushing ahead, these people find success.

And persistent, resilient people double back. They return to people and places where they first found rejection. After finding success, persistent people give their customers and clients a second look at the solutions that their products and services offer. Or, in the case of research and development, they retry experiments or methods to determine if their first efforts had flaws.

Ask Questions

Persistent people don’t walk away without first knowing they have given their best effort. To know, they ask questions about their methods and efforts.

“What can I do differently?”

“Do I need to change my strategy?”

“Is there a better design for my product?”

“Who can help me find new solutions or approaches?”

“Is there a proven method that I should adopt?”

Self-consciousness is an obstacle to confidence. When I lack confidence, I am focusing on myself.

Loss of Confidence

When I lack confidence, I am focusing on myself. I have a heightened feeling of uncertainty about my abilities and about my acceptability.
Confidence, for me, comes from focusing on my activity and my surroundings: the people and the objects down to their colors and details. In so doing, I become conscious of my world and hot on the things in my head.

The Hammer and the Nail

Driving a long nail into a solid piece of wood can be difficult. When I think about the length of the nail or how it might bend the nail, I often do bend the nail. Or, I might hit and damage the wood. Or even worse, I might hit my fingers or my thumb. I lack confidence. My focus is on my inability to drive a nail straight into the wood. I am self-conscious.

Success

More successfully, when I am looking directly at the head of the nail, and thinking seeing my hammer hit the nail, I lose self-consciousness, I gain confidence. I drive the nail straight into the wood.
I stay focused on my target. As coaches teach a baseball batter, see the ball into the bat.

Things we don’t think about don’t scare us. ~ www.jaywren.com

Who doesn’t have days when we worry about things going badly? We want things and worry that we will not get them. Or, we have things and worry that we will lose them.

Living in fear of what might happen is pointless and painful.

The first step to dealing with fear is to realize that our fear doesn’t exist in the things we fear. It exists inside of us. No matter how great the likelihood of something happening, worrying about it exists only in our head. Moreover, when we worry, we are scaring ourselves with our thinking. The events we fear may never happen or the consequences may not be how we fear them. Once we can accept these facts, we can begin to see ways to change our feelings and our thinking to ease or eliminate the fear.

Feelings

For me, the first step to deal with worry is to learn ways to manage my feelings. To help you understand what I mean, suppose that you are worrying about giving a presentation. You are so worried that you can’t even concentrate on preparing a small outline of the presentation.

So, try one or more simple methods for reducing the power of your feelings. Here are steps I take to reduce or end the anxiety driving my worries.

Breathe: Develop your own techniques for breathing to calm your nerves. For me, I can just become aware of my breathing. I may start with a cleansing breath. By that, I mean I breathe in slowly until my lungs seem full. Then I slowly release that breath. I continue this process until my mind wanders off my breathing. Depending on how I am feeling, I may return to my breathing or I may simply return to my activities.

Thinking

The second step to ending worry is to become aware of my thoughts. If I am worrying, I am thinking about something in the future. In the meantime, I may be in the middle of wonderful experiences that I can’t enjoy, because my fear dominates my thoughts.

By breathing, I move my thinking into the present moment. I focus on my breathe. From there, I can think about the people and things around me. I can enjoy life. My mind clears and I make better decisions. That presentation that frightens me becomes a project I can manage.

Your network is your sphere of influence. ~ www.jaywren.com

One powerful way to gain recognition is to have influential people write or talk about you. If you know people in any form of media, consider whether those people might help you gain recognition. A simple technique that I used at one time was to have a local television station interview me when I had any product that they might consider newsworthy.

You don’t need to use the media to announce your career move. Such actions might cost you your job. However, perhaps you are involved in community or professional activities. Let’s say, for example, you are attending a trade show. You might offer to serve as a source of information about the show. Simply letting the media know you are available as a source of information might give you public exposure as an expert.

A successful virtual (or phone) interview carries as much weight as an in-person interview. Without success in either one, you cannot move ahead in the interview process. 

In any interview, you need to know what to expect and how to prepare for the interview discussion. Additionally, in a virtual phone or virtual interview, you need to know even more things.   

• Setting up your location
• Things to have on your desk
• Preparing for interview discussion
• Chemistry: Creating a Professional Connection

Setting Up Your Location

Before the meeting, prepare as though someone is coming to meet you in your office.

Select your interview place carefully. Pick a quiet room. Have a glass of water handy. Pick a comfortable chair. 

Test your equipment beforehand. Restart your digital device. Open your virtual application. Allow enough time for your device and application to install updates. 

Things on Your Desk

Having these items on your desk will help you hit the key points you want to make.  

1. A statement of your objectives for the meeting
2. Any correspondence or research you have that relates to the company
3. A list of key points you wish to make
4. A list of questions
5. Your resume
6. The job description

Preparing for Interview Discussion

In any interview, you need to prepare to discuss these topics. 

1. Your accomplishments as a student and your accomplishments in any jobs that you have held
2. Everything you can learn about the hiring company: address, industry, leadership, type of company (sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation)
3. The match between your skills and the required job qualifications
4. Specifics of why you are applying for the job
5. Your job status (employed, unemployed)

Chemistry: Creating a Professional Connection

The following actions help you project energy, a winning attitude, and a positive personality.

Even if you are uncertain whether you want the job before you get the call, make sure that you do the best job you can. After all, you’ve already invested time applying for the job. You have filled out an application. You may have completed a web-based questionnaire.

Remember to take a quiet deep breath from time to time. Say positive things about yourself and about the other people on the call. Smile. You will project warmth even though the interviewer cannot see you.

Even if you are on the phone, you can let your personality shine. Smile. Stay positive. You will project warmth whether the other people can see you or not.

Ask questions to keep interviewers involved.

Allow the interviewer a chance to speak.

Listen to the questions. Make sure you understand the questions before you answer them. Make your answers detailed but to the point.

Emphasize that you are interested in going forward with the opportunity. 

Set your phone to mute. If you are in a phone interview or virtual interview, you don’t need the distractions of your phone buzzing or ringing. 

Make sure that people around you know not to disturb you.

Certainly, do not multitask.

Wear professional attire.

Do a trial close questions: for example, ask the interviewer when the company will decide.

Remember to close the interview on an upbeat note. Thank the interviewer for taking time to speak with you. Emphasize that you hope to have a chance to speak again.

Assume Nothing

Moreover, assume nothing. The people conducting the interview play a real role in your getting a job with the company. Even if you never speak with that person again, you can’t get an in-person meeting without their recommendation. Furthermore, the person may be someone who will be involved with you throughout your career with the hiring company. Getting off on the right foot may pay huge dividends you can’t anticipate. 

Don’t Make These Mistakes

Don’t fake your answers. If you do not know that answer to a question, just say so. Don’t try to tell a joke. Don’t allow interruptions. They distract the people in the interview.

There are many traits of winning team members. Here are six of the best traits.

Mistakes

Team members own their mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. On winning teams, the members admit them and do not repeat them. Additionally, these members immediately correct their mistakes. Without delay, they move the team along successfully.

Job Description

Winning team members know their job description.

Members of winning teams know their job description. They read it with their team leader. They discuss the goals and responsibilities of their jobs openly with each other to collaborate effectively.

Furthermore, they are conscientious. They know how to do their job, and they do it correctly.

Boundaries

On winning teams, members know their boundaries. They know where their responsibilities end and the responsibilities of others begin. They allow others to do their own job.

Being a team player and helping other people is one thing. However, carrying other team members or interfering with the performance of other team members on winning teams, reduces the team’s strength in numbers.

Perspective

Mental intensity is critical to take teams to the next level. However, mental intensity can lead to exhaustion. Carried to extremes over extended periods, mental intensity can lead to a condition where team members lose interest. They burn out. In the worst cases, team members cannot do their job at all. They underperform. In some cases, team members simply quit.

Talented team leaders know how to reduce intensity to a sustainable level. They know whether the race of the day is a marathon or a sprint.

Credit

Winning team members give credit to the team. These team members empower their teammates for success. The team members bond and become more powerful when they celebrate as a team.

Humility

The greatest teams have members who put team wins above personal wins.

Self-comparisons are normal, but not always healthy. 

For some people, success comes early and appears to be easy. Some tech entrepreneurs become billionaires in their twenties. Often, entertainers become famous and wealthy as children. Athletes become millionaires in their late teens and early twenties. 

Measuring our success against the success of these people is flawed. Everyone starts from different places and with different opportunities. A better measure is how we stack up against our personal and professional goals.